‘Pirates’ firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have boarded a tanker off the coast of Somalia on Thursday, according to reports.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency has issued an alert to warn ships in the area of the attack, which it located 560 nautical miles southeast of Eyl, Somalia, in the Indian Ocean.
“The Master of a vessel has reported being approached by one small craft on its stern. The small craft fired small arms and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] towards the vessel,” UKMTO said in a statement.
Maritime security firm Ambrey also reported that an attack was underway, saying a Malta-flagged tanker had reportedly been boarded by pirates.
According to the maritime specialists Vanguard Tech and Ambrey, details of the attacked vessel correspond to the Hellas Aphrodite, which changed its track and slowed down at the time of the attack.
The ship’s owners and managers could not immediately be reached for comment.
The vessel was en route from Sikka, India, to Durban, South Africa, Ambrey said.
“The pirates were reported to have approached on a skiff and opened fire on the tanker,” Ambrey said in statement, adding that Somali pirates were operating from an Iranian fishing boat they had seized.
Another maritime security firm, the Diaplous Group, said the attacked tanker had a crew of 24 mariners, all of whom reportedly locked themselves into the ship’s citadel for safety during the attack.
The vessel did not have an armed security team aboard it, the firm added.
The European Union’s Operation Atalanta, a counter-piracy mission around the Horn of Africa, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
That EU force has responded to other recent pirate attacks in the area and had issued a recent alert to shippers that a pirate group was operating off Somalia and assaults were “almost certain” to happen.
Thursday’s attack comes after another vessel, the Cayman Islands-flagged Stolt Sagaland, found itself targeted in a suspected pirate attack that included both its armed security force and the attackers shooting at each other, the EU force said.
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